Psalm 1 might be overly optimistic, but it functions as a fine counterpoint to the other readings. Those readings address groups. Jeremiah spoke to the Kingdom of Judah. St. Paul the Apostle, addressing Jews in Antioch in Pisidia (in Asia Minor), spoke of the actions of religious authorities in Jerusalem. St. (Simon) Peter the Apostle or someone writing in his name addressed congregations in Asia Minor. Those three pericopes fit well together, for they diagnose societal problems. Hubris is the main ill in Jeremiah 13. From that pride flow other sins. Such a diagnosis fits the pericope from Acts 13 well, for hubris contributed to the execution of an innocent man. The readings from 1 Peter takes as its theme obedience to God.
Then away with all wickedness and deceit, hypocrisy and jealousy and malicious talk of any kind!
–1 Peter 2:1, The Revised English Bible (1989)
So much for a great deal of politics, talk radio, celebrity news, and Internet content!
The words of these days’ pericopes indict as strongly today as they did when they were fresh. Human nature has not changed over time. As Koheleth wrote,
Only that shall happen
Which has happened,
Only that occur
Which has occurred;
There is nothing new
Beneath the sun!
–Ecclesiastes 1:9, TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures (1985)
Time passes, technology changes, and political and economic systems come and go, but we are really playing out variations of old themes, are we not? Hubris remains current, malicious gossip has never ceased, and people in power continue to cause innocents to die.
May God have mercy on us all!
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
OCTOBER 14, 2015 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF ALL CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES
THE FEAST OF SAMUEL ISAAC JOSEPH SCHERESCHEWSKY, EPISCOPAL BISHOP OF SHANGHAI
THE FEAST OF THOMAS HANSEN KINGO, DANISH LUTHERAN BISHOP, HYMN WRITER, AND “POET OF EASTERTIDE”
Everlasting God, you give strength to the weak and power to the faint.
Make us agents of your healing and wholeness,
that your good may be made known to the ends your creation,
through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.
–Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 24
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The Assigned Readings:
Leviticus 13:1-17 (Thursday)
Leviticus 14:1-20 (Friday)
Leviticus 14:21-32 (Saturday)
Psalm 30 (All Days)
Hebrews 12:7-13 (Thursday)
Acts 19:11-20 (Friday)
Matthew 26:6-13 (Saturday)
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Hear me, LORD, and be kind to me,
be my helper, LORD.
–Psalm 30:11, The Psalms Introduced and Newly Translated for Today’s Readers, Harry Mowvley (1989)
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Ritual impurity and purity were major concerns in the Law of Moses. Among the major forms of ritual impurity were those which tzara’at, or the leakage of life, caused. In people it manifested as a range of skin conditions, which were not leprosy, technically Hanson’s Disease. In fabrics (Leviticus 13:47-59) it consisted of damage which mold or mildew caused. And in building materials (14:33-47) people saw evidence of it via mildew or rot in walls.
Dermatological impurity received more fear and attention, however. Some even argued that it constituted divine punishment for sin. The combination of shunning and guilt must have been a terrible burden to bear. Hence restoration to wholeness and community must have been all the more wonderful.
May we refrain from laying burdens atop people. Rather, may we function as instruments of divine healing and reconciliation. May God work through us to restore others to wholeness and community. May God bless others through us. We will receive our blessings as part of that process. There will be blessings all around. Is that not wonderful?
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
DECEMBER 2, 2014 COMMON ERA
THE THIRD DAY OF ADVENT, YEAR B
THE FEAST OF SAINT BRIOC, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBOT; AND SAINT TUDWAL, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBOT AND BISHOP
THE FEAST OF CHANNING MOORE WILLIAMS, EPISCOPAL BISHOP IN CHINA AND JAPAN
THE FEAST OF JOHN BROWN, ABOLITIONIST
THE FEAST OF SAINT OSMUND OF SALISBURY, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP
Everlasting God, you give strength to the weak and power to the faint.
Make us agents of your healing and wholeness,
that your good may be made known to the ends your creation,
through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.
–Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 24
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The Assigned Readings:
Job 6:1-13
Psalm 102:12-28
Mark 3:7-12
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The days of my life are like a lengthening shadow:
though I am withering away like grass
You remain, LORD, for ever:
succeeding generations will be reminded of you.
–Psalm 102:12-13, The Psalms Introduced and Newly Translated for Today’s Readers, Harry Mowvley (1989)
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Today we have readings about two men–one fictional, the other real–who suffered, but not for any sin they had committed.
The titular character of the Book of Job was righteous. He suffered because God permitted it as a test of loyalty. Job’s alleged friends defended their orthodoxy, which held that Job must be suffering for a sin or sins he had committed, for God, being just, would never let an innocent person suffer. They blamed a victim and even gloated as he suffered. After Eliphaz the Temanite stated that a righteous person’s merit can shield him or her from harm, Job said:
…What strength have I, that I should endure?
How long have I to live, that I should be patient?
–6:11, TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures (1985)
Jesus had made deadly enemies as early as Mark 3:6. (His offense had been to heal on the Sabbath.) Throngs of people seeking healing pursued him, pressed upon him, and caused him great physical stress. At least Jesus had Apostles to prepare a getaway boat. But he still died at the hands of powerful political enemies. Fortunately, there was also the Resurrection.
A few weeks ago I heard a new (to me, anyway) take on the statement that God will never give us more to bear than we can handle. An individualistic understanding of that statement is erroneous, for we exist in spiritual community. Thus God will not impose a burden too heavy for the community to bear. This is about “we,” not “me.” May we support each other and not be like Job’s alleged friends. And there is more: we have the merits of Christ. That merit is sufficient, although it has not protected martyrs from harm. The message I take away from that fact is that safety is not necessarily part of God’s promise to the faithful. God will, however, be present with them. How is that for burden-sharing community?
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
DECEMBER 2, 2014 COMMON ERA
THE THIRD DAY OF ADVENT, YEAR B
THE FEAST OF SAINT BRIOC, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBOT; AND SAINT TUDWAL, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBOT AND BISHOP
THE FEAST OF CHANNING MOORE WILLIAMS, EPISCOPAL BISHOP IN CHINA AND JAPAN
THE FEAST OF JOHN BROWN, ABOLITIONIST
THE FEAST OF SAINT OSMUND OF SALISBURY, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP
Obey God’s laws, whether or not one lives among foreigners with different religions and customs.
Love one’s fellow human beings actively and effectively, trusting in the power of God to enable one to do this.
Do not use God and/or religion to to cover up or to attempt to cover up one’s own perfidy.
The latter point requires some explanation. Korban was a custom by which one gave money to the religious establishment for the support of the professional religious people there. Many people used this practice to deprive their relatives of necesssary funds while looking pious. And many Temple officials knew it. Thus religion became a means of circumventing a basic ethic of the Law of Moses:
Honor your father and your mother.
In other words, motives mattered. They still do.
Ethics are concrete, not abstract. Since we human beings live in communities, our actions and inactions affect each other. Our actions and inactions flow from our attitudes. Thus how we think of each other matters greatly. Do we value each other or do we seek ways to exploit and/or deprive each other? Which people do we think of as our neighbors?
May we not use the letter of the law to the cover up or to attempt to cover up violations of its spirit.
Liturgical time matters, for it sacramentalizes days, hours, and minutes, adding up to seasons on the church calendar. Among the frequently overlooked seasons is the Season after Epiphany, the first part of Ordinary Time. The Feast of the Epiphany always falls on January 6 in my tradition. And Ash Wednesday always falls forty days (excluding Sundays) before Easter Sunday. The Season after Epiphany falls between The Feast of the Epiphany and Ash Wednesday. In 2013 the season will span January 7-February 12.
This season ought to be a holy time, one in which to be especially mindful of the imperative to take the good news of Jesus of Nazareth to others by a variety of means, including words when necessary. Words are meaningless when our actions belie them, after all. Among the themes of this season is that the Gospel is for all people, not just those we define as insiders. No, the message is also for our “Gentiles,” those whom we define as outsiders. So, with that thought in mind, I encourage you, O reader, to exclude nobody. Do not define yourself as an insider to the detriment of others. If you follow this advice, you will have a proper Epiphany spirit.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
NOVEMBER 9, 2012 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF MARTIN CHEMNITZ, GERMAN LUTHERAN THEOLOGIAN
THE FEAST OF BARTON STONE, COFOUNDER OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH (DISCIPLES OF CHRIST)
Job needed friends. He got Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite instead. Alas for Job! And he lamented the lack of support. I would prefer strangulation too; at least it would get me away from those alleged friends.
Counterpoints occur in John. We being with John the Baptist, whose movement had fewer followers than that of Jesus. John continued to point toward our Lord. Then, in Chapter 4, Jesus commenced the longest recorded conversation in the canonical Gospels. This conversation was with not only a woman–unheard of in many circles–but with a Samaritan woman–even more scandalous. Many interpreters–out of mysogyny or tradition or both–have assumed that she had a dubious sexual reputation, but there is no textual proof for that. She could, for example have been in a levirate marriage–legal under the Law of Moses. Jesus helped the woman at the well. I can only imagine what harm Eliphaz, Bildad, or Zophar would have wrought.
Until the next segment of our journey….
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
APRIL 15, 2012 COMMON ERA
THE SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER, YEAR B
THE FEASTS OF SAINT OLGA OF KIEV, REGENT OF KIEVAN RUSSIA; ADALBERT OF MAGDEBURG, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP; ADALBERT OF PRAGUE, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP AND MARTYR; AND BENEDICT AND GAUDENTIUS OF POMERANIA, ROMAN CATHOLIC MARTYRS
THE FEAST OF SAINT DAMIEN DE VEUSTER, A.K.A. DAMIEN OF MOLOKAI, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST
THE FEAST OF SAINT EGBERT OF LINDISFARNE, ROMAN CATHOLIC MONK AND SAINT ADALBERT OF EGMONT, ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSIONARY
THE FEAST OF SAINT MELLITUS, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
Holy Women, Holy Men: Celebrating the Saints (2010), of The Episcopal Church, contains an adapted two-years weekday lectionary for the Epiphany and Ordinary Time seasons from the Anglican Church of Canada. I invite you to follow it with me.
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1 Kings 11:1-13 (TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures):
King Solomon loved many foreign women in addition to Pharaoh’s daughter–Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Phoenician, and Hittite women, from the nations of which the LORD had said to the Israelites,
None of you shall join them and none of them shall join you, lest they turn your heart away to follow their gods.
Such Solomon clung to and loved. He had seven hundred royal wives and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned his heart away. In his old age, his wives turned Solomon’s heart after other gods; and he not as wholeheartedly devoted to the LORD his God as his father David had been. Solomon followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Phoenicians, and Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.
Solomon did what was displeasing to the LORD and did not remain loyal to the LORD like his father David. At that time, Solomon built a shrine for Chemosh the abomination of Moab on the hill near Jerusalem, and one for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites. And he did the same for all his foreign wives who offered and sacrificed to their gods.
The LORD was angry with Solomon, because his heart turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice and had commanded him about this matter, not to follow other gods; he did not obey what the LORD had commanded. And the LORD said to Solomon,
Because you are guilty of this–yo have not kept My covenant and the laws which I enjoined upon you–I will tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your servants. But, for the sake of your father David, I will not do it in your lifetime; I will tear it away from your son. However, I will not tear away the whole kingdom; I will give your son one tribe, for the sake of My servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen.
Psalm 132:11-19 (1979 Book of Common Prayer):
11 The LORD has sworn an oath to David;
in truth, he will not break it:
12 ”A son, the fruit of your body
will I set upon your throne.
13 If your children keep my covenant
and my testimonies that I shall teach them,
their children will sit upon your throne for evermore.”
14 For the LORD has chosen Zion;
he has desired her for his habitation:
15 ”This shall be my resting-place for ever;
here will I dwell, for I delight in her.
16 I will surely bless her provisions,
and satisfy her poor with bread.
17 I will clothe her priests with salvation,
and her faithful people will rejoice and sing.
18 There will I make the horn of David flourish;
I have prepared a lamp for my Anointed.
19 As for his enemies, I will clothe them with shame;
but as for him, his crown will shine.”
Mark 7:24-30 (J. B. Phillips, 1972):
Then he got up and left that place and went off to the neighbourhood of Tyre. There we went into a house and wanted no one to know where he was. But it proved impossible to remain hidden. For no sooner had he got there, than a woman who had heard about him, and who had a daughter possessed by an evil spirit, arrived and prostrated herself before him. She was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she asked him to drive the evil spirit out of her daughter. Jesus said to her,
You must let the children have all they want first. It is not right, you know, to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.
But she replied,
Yes, Lord, I know, but even the dogs under the table eat the scraps that the children leave.
Jesus said to her,
If you can answer like that you can go home! The evil spirit has left your daughter.
And she went back to her home and found the child lying quietly on her bed, and the evil spirit gone.
Set us free, O God, from the bondage of our sins, and give us the liberty of that abundant life which you have made known to us in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
The theology of 1 Kings holds that faithlessness to God led to the decline of the Jewish kingdoms of the Old Testament. The truth is not quite that simple, I maintain, for one must consider economic factors in the mix. Marxian analysis rounds out the historical analysis nicely. I covered some of that ground in the previous post.
There is also the question of how to relate to Gentiles. The author of 1 Kings 11 preferred to stay away from them. But Jesus went to them in Mark 7. Tyre was, simply put, Gentiles Central. Thus I propose that, if our Lord had wanted to avoid Gentiles, he would not have chosen to visit Tyre. With that social context in mind, what might seem like an insult comes across as a statement meant to elicit a faithful response, which it did.
The proper question is not whether one is a Jew or a Gentile, but whether one is faithful. A home ought to be a place for the nurturing of faith, so marrying within the faith makes sense to me, assuming that marriage is one’s vocation. (There is nothing wrong with remaining single if that is one’s call from God.) Nurturing faith is also the proper work of a congregation and certain other social support system one has. Religion, which is somewhat personal, is also inherently public, not that this fact ought to lead to the establishment and maintenance of a theocracy. Besides, mutual forbearance and toleration where respect fails at least has the virtue of fostering civility. And, as Roger Williams, a minister and a colonial advocate of the separation of church and state, said, a prayer one utters under compulsion is meaningless.
As for me, I stand by and for certain propositions, but I do so without being habitually cranky. Most of my professions, many of which I offer via this and other weblogs, are positive. The grace of God is for all people–Jews and Gentiles. The Apostle Paul and James, Bishop of Jerusalem, stirred up controversy by welcoming Gentiles. These great men were correct, of course. Simon Peter came to realize in Acts 10 that purity codes separating Jews from Gentiles were null and void.
I, as a Gentile, stand on the shoulders of these men.
An enduring lesson I offer you, O reader, is this: Who are your “Gentiles,” those you consider impure, assuming, of course, that you make such judgments? Like Peter, Paul, and James, and Jesus, may you reach out to them and welcome them in God’s Name, to the glory of God and for the benefit of your “Gentiles.”
Holy Women, Holy Men: Celebrating the Saints (2010), of The Episcopal Church, contains an adapted two-years weekday lectionary for the Epiphany and Ordinary Time seasons from the Anglican Church of Canada. I invite you to follow it with me.
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Genesis 3:1-8 (Richard Elliott Friedman, 2001):
And the snake was slier than every animal of the field that YHWH God had made, and he said to the woman,
Has God indeed said you may not eat from any tree of the garden?
And the woman said to the snake,
We may eat from the fruit of the trees of the garden. But from the fruit of the tree that is within the garden God has said, “You shall not eat from it, and you shall not touch it, or else you’ll die.”
And the snake said to the woman,
You won’t die!” Because God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you’ll be like God–knowing good and bad.
And the woman saw that the tree was good for eating and that it was an attraction to the eyes, and the tree was desirable to bring about understanding, and she took some of its fruit, and she ate, and gave to her man with her as well, and he ate. And the eyes of the two of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they picked fig leaves and made loincloths for themselves.
And they heard the sound of YHWH God walking in the garden and the wind of the day, and the human and his woman hid from YHWH God among the garden’s trees.
Psalm 32:1-8 (1979 Book of Common Prayer):
1 Happy are they whose transgressions are forgiven,
and whose sin is put away!
2 Happy are they to whom the LORD imputes no guilt,
and in whose spirit there is no guile!
3 While I held my tongue, my bones withered away,
because of my groaning all day long.
4 For your hand was upon me day and night;
my moisture was dried up as in the heat of summer.
5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you,
and did not conceal my guilt.
6 I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD.”
Then you forgave me the guilt of my sin.
7 Therefore all the faithful will make their prayers to you in time of trouble;
when the great waters overflow, they shall not reach them.
8 You are my hiding-place;
you preserve me from trouble;
you surround me with shouts of deliverance.
Mark 7:31-37 (J. B. Phillips, 1972):
Once more Jesus left the neighbourhood of Tyre and passed through Sidon towards the Lake of Galilee, and crossed the Ten Towns territory. They brought to him a man who was deaf and unable to speak intelligibly, and they implored him to put his hand upon him. Jesus took him away from the crowd by himself. He put his fingers in the man’s ears and touched his tongue with his saliva. Then, looking up to Heaven, he gave a deep sigh and said to him in Aramaic,
Open!
And his ears were opened and immediately whatever had tied his tongue came loose and he spoke quite plainly. Jesus gave instructions that they should tell no one about this happening, but the more he told them, the more they broadcast the news. People were absolutely amazed, and kept saying,
How wonderfully he has done everything! He even makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.
Set us free, O God, from the bondage of our sins, and give us the liberty of that abundant life which you have made known to us in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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Sin spoils creation. The reading from Genesis describes the original sin, which is hubris, in mythological terms. There is nothing wrong with knowing the difference between good and evil, but there is plenty wrong with seeking, on our own power, to be like God. We are not God, and nothing will change that fact. And we cannot hide from God, either, no matter how much we try.
I feel the need to make a few other comments about Genesis 3:1-8:
The snake is just a snake. It plays the role of the mythological trickster (such as Loki or Coyote), whose function is to introduce chaos into the established order and to challenge conventional rules of behavior. Some tricksters are openly villainous, where as others are morally ambiguous.
Later Christian tradition associates the snake with Satan. This is not a Jewish understanding, and Genesis is a Jewish text. By the way, the theology of Satan evolves throughout the Jewish Bible, so that the Satan (“the Adversary”) begins by working for God (as in Judges and Job) and ends by opposing God (post-Exilic period). And, by the end of the First Century C.E., the Revelation to John tells the story of the Satan in such a way as to ignore the part about “the Adversary” ever working for God. This seems like a good time for me state plainly that, due to my knowledge of the history of theology of the nature of Satan, I cannot and do not believe in the existence of Satan, or personalized evil. (Call me a heretic if you please; I will take it as high praise.)
Talmudic tradition states that the fruit Adam and Eve ate was the fig. The choice of fig leaves to cover selected nakedness becomes ironic in that understanding of the story.
The story of Jesus continues in the Markan Gospel. When last we read about Jesus in Mark, he was in Tyre, a city the Phoenicians had founded on the Mediterranean coast. He was surrounded by Gentiles. When we resume the story where we left off, we read that our Lord and Savior takes the scenic route to the Decapolis, a region with ten cities and many Gentiles, as well as a fair number of Jews. Jesus is still surrounded by Gentiles.
There Jesus meets a deaf man with a speech impediment. Of course the man has a speech impediment; he is deaf. We humans learn to speak by listening to others. Local superstition holds that spittle has curative powers, so Jesus uses what the man and his believe and puts a good shamanic show for everyone. The power of the healing is not present in the show, however. The Gospel of Mark tells of Jesus healing people with various conditions with a word, and even doing this in absentia. Yet the shamanic show serves a purpose; Jesus is meeting the deaf man and his neighbors where they are. He demonstrates respect and compassion for them in this way. Our Lord and Savior sees a man who needs his help; he does not see a medical case.
Jesus tries to keep his Messianic secret, as he does elsewhere in the Markan Gospel. But, as elsewhere in Mark, people talk anyway. They say that he does all things well.
What, you ask, is the connective tissue between Genesis and Mark? Funny you should ask. William Barclay provides that connective tissue in his Daily Study Bible volume on the Gospel of Mark:
When Jesus came, bringing healing to men’s bodies and salvation to their souls, he had begun the work of creation all over again. In the beginning everything has been good; man’s sin had spoiled it all; and now Jesus was bringing back the beauty of God to the world which man’s sin had rendered ugly. (page 182)
We ought not get too big for our britches, a metaphor which fails to apply to Adam and Eve. But God, in the form of Jesus, meets us where we are and in our own cultural context. And, if we are willing to recognize who (and what) we are and who (and what) Jesus is, he can work with us to make us who (and what) we are supposed to become. This might not be what we want to become, but God knows better than we do. Details will vary according to each person, but the principle is constant: Empowered by God, we are called to help communicate the beauty of God to a world sin has rendered ugly.
KRT
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O FOR A THOUSAND TONGUES TO SING
Words by Charles Wesley (1707-1788)
As printed in The Methodist Hymnal (1965), of The Methodist Church:
ADVENT, CHRISTMAS, AND EPIPHANY DEVOTIONS 
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